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January 12, 2005

Gunner’s Palace Update

Back in June, I did a post about Michael Tucker, an embedded journalist in Iraq who was making a film about the war. An unpretentious observer with a clear eye for emotional details, Tucker bonded easily with soldiers and assembled a website offering bits and pieces about the impact of war and things troops did to maintain normalcy.

Apparently, his film is about to be released. Because I haven’t seen it, I can’t really vouch for it. (I also had a little trouble viewing the Yahoo-hosted trailer.) If it’s like the web journal, though, it should give a less varnished look at the war from the soldier’s (as opposed to the government’s) point of view.

As Tucker writes in his last entry from his last visit:

With each trip to Iraq, my opinions have become dulled–it’s all become personal. When I watch the news, I think of people I know in Baghdad. I think of the families I’ve had dinner with, the friends that I’ve drank endless cups of tea with and the soldiers that I’ve rolled with. I worry about all of them. During the last year, if anything, I’ve learned that war isn’t what most of us think it is: it has nothing to do with what most of us know and it’s definitely not what you see on the news.

I’ve asked soldiers what they think about the war and their answers are surprisingly simple. After a year, the war isn’t about WMDs, democracy, Donald Rumsfeld or oil. It’s about them. Simple. They just want to finish the job they were sent to do so they can go home.